It is a misconception that simply appointing a health and safety manager to handle and coordinate H&S issues and conduct H&S meetings is sufficient to cover employers’ legal duty to consult with its employees.  Health and safety policies tend to cover extensively the need to report information up the chain but fall short of including a genuine mechanism for employee consultation beyond the management approach of ‘my door is always open’ (not that most managers have a door or even a regular desk in the age of flexible work spaces and hot-desking).  The events industry is undergoing exposure to rapid changes ranging from corporate mergers and acquisitions, expansion into new countries and markets, the need to cope with new technology and the risks that come with it, an ever changing security threat and changes in the law which ramp up corporate and individual exposure to legal sanction.  In this environment event companies need to have handle on the impact this has on operations generally and employees as individuals.  Well-being now features regularly at event health and safety forums as an issue that needs addressing.

Aside from the obvious benefits of consulting with staff it is a legal requirement not simply a ‘nice to have’.  Two sets of regulations govern this: the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1997 (SRSCR) and the Health and Safety (Consultations with Employees) Regulations 1996 (HSCER).  The SRSCR only applies to workforces where there is a recognised union which is not relevant to most event businesses.  Under the HSCER, which applies to all non-unionised workforces an employer can choose to consult with employees directly or through workforce elected representatives.  The HSE provides guidance Consulting with employees on health and safety: a brief guide to the law IND 232 which can be downloaded from the HSE website at www.hse.gov.uk.

Event staff often spend long periods away from the office on site as is the nature of the business and during those times there is usually little time to do anything other than focus on the event in hand.  This means that quality time needs to be set aside for consultation to take place.  Many prosecutions feature a failure to carry out a ‘suitable and sufficient’ risk assessment and an element of risk assessment is consulting with employees.

The upshot is that organisations need to take an holistic approach and ensure that event staff are given the means and the time both to contribute to health and safety processes and to voice any concerns or issues that they have.